Sunday, March 4, 2012

thirty day thread: day three

Around Christmastime I read this really adorable blog about a woman who was hand crafting all of her children's Christmas gifts. One of the gifts she made was a set of beanbags in really great fun fabrics. I didn't think it seemed like too lofty of a project so I decided to try my hand at making bean bags.

I couldn't find the exact blog, but here is a different one with the same project.

The only scrap fabric I had on hand to practice with was this cottony, flannelly white stuff that I had purchased at the thrift store for ninety-nine cents. Not very pretty or fun, but I thought it would be fine for practice, not to mention the fact that my navy colored thread would really show up and allow me to see how well (or not!) I was doing.

I started out with two back-to-back 5" squares. I threaded one side but was again running into the problem of mixing my "tail" threads with the stitches.

Argh! I kept rethreading and cutting and trying, but all three sides ended up pretty much the same. I called my parents (the machine belongs to them), and my dad suggested tightening the presser foot.

Before finishing the beanbag, I filled it about half full with rice. Now you serious seamstress types are going to totally laugh at me about this next part. I knew I needed to finish the bag with a blind stitch. I knew there was a machine setting for such a stitch. But what I envisioned (a machine stitch on the inside of the bag) and what happened (a very visible stitch on the outside of the bag) were very different. See for yourself:

Gross. Anyway, at this point I was feeling really discouraged so I had some chocolate and a glass of milk. Hi, I'm Sarah and I'm a stress eater.

Feeling rejuvenated by my mini pity party I decided to give the beanbag project another go. And do you know what? It actually turned out much better! Ha! Seriously. No weird threading nonsense, the backwards finishing feature worked, and I didn't have to rethread after every inch or so of sewing. And my stitches were somewhat straight even!

Yay! After the first fiasco, I realized that hand stitching was in my near future. So I gathered up my handy dandy sewing kit, queued up this video, and finished my project. I was pretty excited about the result:

my blind stitching

Crooked, but cute. I have realized that I just need a lot more practice using the machine and just becoming more familiar with the whole process. So everyone I know will be getting beanbags in the next few weeks haha! Just kidding. But I really am especially excited to give these babies to my little boy in the morning. I know he'll love them.